Here is the Scripture that points to the falling away, "4 For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, 5 and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, 6 if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of God, and put Him to an open shame. 7 For the earth which drinks in the rain that often comes upon it, and bears herbs useful for those by whom it is cultivated, receives blessing from God; 8 but if it bears thorns and briers, it is rejected and near to being cursed, whose end is to be burned. 9 But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner. 10 For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister." (Heb 6:4-10).

There are certain people who ask the question, "How can one fall away from the faith, when he is not already in the faith?". Still some other say, "Who are they who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come? The finally evaluate to say that theseare none other than believers, so they cannot be saved forever if they fall away from faith. Thus once saved cannot be always saved they say!" Still some other people say, if we fall away from faith, we will be cursed and at the end burned in hell fire. Is it right?"

What does the writer say really about "falling away"?

Notice because the writer is saying to believers these things, in context only he is only speaking to those apostates who are hiding in the sheep's clothing of the believer. So we understand that from the perspective of the writer, A Apostate can :

(1) Once Get Enlightened To Understand The Gospel, note it is only once, then they reject the Gospel in their heart and outwardly act as believer. Were they saved? No way, because they did not accept themselves as sinners in need of the Savior Jesus.

(2) Tasted the heavenly gift and have become a partaker of the Holy Spirit, but still they were not saved because of tasting the Holy Spirit for the thrill of the moment and have not let Him convict them of their sin (John 16:7-14). For example when a person who without being saved asks for the Holy Spirit, a deceptive Spirit of lies will take over themto even make them speak in tongues of which others will think that this particular person is saved and have the Holy Spirit of God with him. But when they see their behavior and actions, it will be deceptive like wolf, ready to devour the sheep for their advantage.

(3) A apostate may taste the Word of God because it is good and therefore will work well for his cunning schemes to deceive others in to submission unconditionally in a wrong way. Instead of understanding where they are wrong through the Word of God, they use the Word of God to gain control over others religiously (Matt 23:2-3). As hearers of the Word of God and not doers, they deceive themselves and also deceive others but they were never saved at all (Jam 1:21-22; Matt 23:15).

(4) Even the powers of the age to come may be experienced by an unsaved apostate in the assembly of the righteous which is the Church. A unsaved person can fall under the power of the Spirit just like any other believer with in the Church or in the evangelistic campaigns, but that is a gift from the Spirit of God and above all it does not indicate the spirituality of the person who fall and experience the age to come. So a apostate will take all the blessings of God's experience, but will not give fruit or herbs of God's character but rather will give out only the sinful evil character harvest of thorns and briers which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like (Gal 5:19-21). Are such people saved? No means by a billion years even if they stay with the Church. In other words, a good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. So the good man is the saved man who believes in Jesus and the evil man is the unsaved man who does all things religious but does not realize his need for the Savior (Matt 12:25).

So finally when the writer to the Hebrews speaks to the believers without the apostate residing within their group, he says to them, "But, beloved, we are confident of better things concerning you, yes, things that accompany salvation, though we speak in this manner." (Heb 6:9). Because these men were really saved, that is once saved and always saved by the grace of God (Eph 2:8-9), he is pointing to the benefits of the salvation that God has given them. What really are the benefits of salvation for the believer? The writer to the Hebrew answers saying, "for God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love which you have shown toward His name, in that you have ministered to the saints, and do minister." (Heb 6:10). In other words, the writer is saying that God will not forget all the works they are doing for God after salvation, in fact God will reward them eternally for all of it. Spreading the gospel and ministering to the saints are some of the very important work every believer will do after their salvation, but the apostates within them may also do the same thing, but the result will be very different from that of a believer. In fact when they tell God later in the day of judgment of how they served God in different ministries of the Church, Jesus will say the truth to them, 'I never knew you,', in other words, it means that they were never saved by Jesus at all (Matt 7:15-20, 21-23). What a sad thing!

So what does "falling away" means?

1) The first category of "falling away" is a phenomenon that will reach its zenith at the end time specifically, and it has been happening ever since the day of Jesus Christ on earth (2 Thess 2:3; Rev 3:10; 1 Tim 4:1), where a lot of unsaved people will start to come in to the Church without any real repentance of their sin or ungodly life and will begin to live religiously within the Church saying that they are saved and also will start to do good works. The specific time before Antichrist the man appears, a large falling away from the faith will happen because of the lukewarmness of the message of the messengers who will not insist of repentance and will not speak about sin. Rather they as preachers and teachers will start to proclaim things that people will want to hear, like self-importance, self-improvement, self-aggrandizement, etc...Danger! Danger! Wolf with sheep clothing are those who are apostates who have fallen away from true faith (Matt 10:16; 7:15). They might boast to everyone that they are Christians, but the nature of their heart will remain with the character of the wolf to deceive and prey on the sheep's of Jesus.

So the saved do not become unsaved when falling away happens, rather the unsaved will be deceived by the deceptive message that they are saved and are going to heaven. So once saved always remains saved. But those who remain without repentance and salvation, due to falling away will remain unsaved due to the deception of the message and the messenger.

According to the Word of God, a mass falling away from faith will come first tangibly in the end time, and then the Antichrist will appear to lead the deceived in to hell fire straight (2 Thess 2:3). Saints of God, arise and shine in the midst of all darkness and deceit, Christ will shine through you (Eph 5:14)!

2) Then there are the second category of "falling away" in believers who fall away in to fruitlessness after becoming saved, who live without giving out fruits of God's character in their lives. These believers bring a shame to the name of the Lord and will not receive blessing of God in their lives, instead will receive the fruit of unrighteousness and will be very near to being cursed, but will be saved by the life of Jesus Christ (Rom 5:10; 1 Cor 3:13-15). These fruitless believers will receive very less reward or no reward which will be because of an unrepentant life (1 Cor 3:12; Heb 6:6-8). The lack of repentance in the life of such believers are the sign that they are out of the favor of God's blessing and are caught in a dry desert of self-life. Here is my other post about in which you can know about this in details : "What about Hebrews 6:4-6?". Thank you.

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